Africa started the engine and "Wish you were here" filled our ears. It was doubly appropriate by then.

She drove all the way up Banbury Road, left Summertown behind and took the highway to London. She was still silent, as she was avoiding bursting out and shooting me with everything she was keeping quiet. I knew she didn't approve of my decision this time, but she would never say anything unless I asked. She always understood perfectly which decisions were whose, and she had a special ability to eventually let me know what she thought without scowling at me or judging me.

There was a lot of traffic. I figured that lots of people were driving to the capital to celebrate their everlasting lives; and, then, my mind drifted back to the ones that wouldn't feel like celebrating it. I had never considered, until that evening, that not everyone would settle on living forever without giving it a second thought.

"What do you think of euthanasia, Africa?" I asked her.

She kept her eyes on the road, and, without hesitating, she answered:

"I support it. As it happens regarding abortion, I think that freedom means being able to decide for yourself in the aspects that concern you most. Your life, your body... it's all yours. And, if I had to make a ranking, I would say that your life comes first. Yeah, I'm absolutely for it."

She didn't ask what my opinion was. However, she had probably already deduced where that sudden interest in bioethical questions came from. She was very different from Nora in that aspect. Nora had always asked plenty of questions. I used to perceive that she saw through me even better than Africa did, but she always seemed thirsty for every tiny detail; she squeezed my thoughts and my words and my memories so that she could put herself in my place and feel exactly the way I did. Eventually, we became soul sisters and she asked less questions. But she talked the same or even more. She completed my thoughts with her own words, and she could always perfectly predict where I was going.

I shivered when I considered if Nora would have chosen to stay alive in the agonizing way in which she had spent her last days: always smiley, but without any light to her complexion. She seemed very strong and alive on the outside, but she had a weak, lazy to live, touch in her mind. I thought she was too afraid to see her enthusiastic self wear away. If she had been given the chance to live like that forever, she may have been unable to wake up every morning and spend her days frustrated at not being able to pursue her wild, impossible dreams with the same mad, sunshine-filled drive as before.

"If someone who doesn't feel happy enough to live it forever, chose not to undergo the treatment, would that be euthanasia, or..." my voice cringed, because I was not talking in general. "... suicide?"

"What do you mean by not happy enough? I think that the difference is in that hue."

"I mean not motivated enough; exhausted, lazy, disappointed in their deepest dreams. Ready to face the end at some point."

"I reckon that would be committing indirect suicide."

"And what would you consider euthanasia, then?" I asked, already foreseeing what she was going to argue, and what I was going to reply.

"Deciding to put an end to agony, to unendurable suffering."

That was exactly what I expected.

"Physical agony, you mean? Why do we make such a big difference between physical suffering, and the heaviness of disappointment and disillusion?"

"You tell me that, doctor." she said, and she turned to face me for the first time since she had started driving.

We were listening to "Californication", and the slow rhythm of the song gave the starry night an even more philosophical, transcendental touch. I picked up on the message of the song. I thought it was very true that we mostly pursued dreams that had been previously designed and thoroughly analyzed. We didn't produce and follow our own. But maybe, the minority of people brave enough to plan their own journey ended up crashing against an enormous, impassable wall and lost all their strength in the bang, progressively turning into clones of the majority. And the majority was always clueless and followed a fenced track.

Now I had invented a new track. Had I? Maybe I had just condemned us all by elongating the established one. At least we had eternity to mold it and tear down the barriers.

We entered King's College with my Student card, and Africa pulled in at the parking lot. It was strange to be at King's without Luke around. I fantasized and could almost see him walking to the entrance door, hurried and lost in thought, as he always walked. The daydream – or, more accurately, awake nightdream – ended when Africa suggested that we should get a bus to the Tate Modern. I told her I wanted to walk. I wasn't ready to face my thieves yet. Nonetheless, when we arrived at the bus station, I changed my mind, because the fantasy about Luke pursued me and hasted me, taking me in its hurried steps and bewitching smell, letting me on how angry I would feel at myself if Luke really was at the party, and left before I got there.

I was willing to meet him and afraid to do so to the same extent. I didn't even know what I would say to him if I had him in front of me. I would hold myself in order not to jump to his arms. But I knew I wouldn't, in a million years, believe he had betrayed me if he looked at me directly with his emerald eyes, not unless he pleaded guilty.

I looked at Africa as we got on the bus. Even if she sat by my side, she was very far away. I wanted to ask her again whether she really thought Luke had been the traitor. I knew she was sure, so I didn't take the risk to hear it again. I preferred not to be entirely convinced of that, at least for that night, and Africa's stare would be a very persuasive answer. If I wasn't a hundred percent positive, I still had an excuse to talk to him, to be with him. And that was everything I wanted: reasons to forgive him, to keep me from falling into the abyss of disenchantment.

The Tate Modern Gallery was illuminated as if we were celebrating a new millennium. In fact, we were celebrating more than that. We were welcoming a new era. I definitely was still not ready to greet it with my arms wide open.

"Forever is ours" shone on the roof. The letters were huge and were made of majestic golden lights. The building usually resembled an old factory, with a huge chimney climbing to the sky from the red brick walls. That night, it was impossible to notice the red bricks at all. They were disguised in multicolour lights. I trembled. A short red carpet led the way to the entrance, were a middle-aged man wearing an obviously expensive tuxedo stood at the door, crossing the names of everyone that walked in out of the list, and adding the ones of their dates. It made me think of a post-Oscars party for VIP Hollywood actors.

The inside of the gallery was even more dressed up than the outside. Far from the indie, alternative appearance it usually had, with modern and often disturbing art creations and thrilling performances, it looked like an elegant ballroom from the 1920s. It was awkward. Taking into account that we were celebrating the future, I would have expected metallic, fluorescent, spectacularly futuristic decorations. Instead, low, round tables decorated with white, natural cocoon silk tablecloths – I instinctively touched one of them –, and renaissance candlesticks filled the ground floor. Garlands full of white and golden lights hung from the high roof, covering the central part of it, which was made of glass, and usually let visitors see the sky from the inside of the gallery. Now we couldn't see beyond the roof of that bubble, beyond that sense-depriving microatmosphere they had created with my help. With my idea.

White, partly see-through silk dossels hung from the roof to the floor. The latter was also attired grandiosely, with expensive-looking, light beige carpets all over it. I found the whole ensemble rather tacky, too rich. Matching the decoration, most females were wearing vaporous, costly dresses in pastel colours with Swarovski embroidery.

"Is it just me, or Fleming&Florey set the date for this immortality-thingy party the same day as a Flappers theme party?" Africa said, grinning ironically. "Oh God! I think I just saw a tiara with feathers!"

I giggled. I was glad that I was not the only one that felt caught in a remake of The Great Gatsby. My femme fatale black dress seemed too contemporary. I was definitely going to get more attention than I was willing to. We decided to cruise the gallery in search of anything familiar, anything remarkable, anything which outstood from the rest. We made our way up the stairs, to the first floor, and contemplated the stateliness of the gallery from a balcony that let us view the ground floor. I felt like I was twisting around and looking up continuously, like an inexperienced, unworldly child, caught in astonishment at the unsuitable, tasteless majesty of the place. The style of decorations changed slightly from one room to another, but I still would have believed, at any of them, that I was in a luxurious speakeasy.

I felt marveled, but also lost. They had changed the Tate Modern Gallery into a completely different thing. They were doing that with everything. They had changed me, they had changed my plans, they were changing the world, and now they willed to turn one of London's most iconic places into a ballroom lost in another time. And the cause of every one of those changes was me, the researcher whose only original goal was to keep things from changing anymore. How sarcastic.

When we finished touring the rooms, and didn't run into anyone we knew, I asked myself what the hell I was doing at a party. I decided that my black dress was at least more discrete than my red coat, which was too eye-catching in that sea of cupcake colours, and let the coat fall from my shoulders.

I felt a masculine hand touch my arm.

I gasped and held my breath. The hand moved down my arm, softly, stroking my skin. Goose bumps appeared all along my body. I didn't have the courage to turn around and face him. I realized I must be turning purple due to my lack of oxygen, and then I told myself off for loosing seconds thinking about the colour that my complexion might show, instead of focusing on that moment.

I lifted my eyes and found Africa's. Hers were fixated on him. She looked like the inventor of the poker face. I tried to find the information I didn't dare to verify myself in her, as if she was my mirror, and looking at reality through her gave me warm-up time. But I didn't find anything. Frustrated, scared and agitated, I finally turned around.

What did you think of this chapter? Do you think that Luke is the man that touched Tessa's arm? Let me know in the comments! I am entering the Wattys 2016, so, if you enjoyed it, please don't forget to vote :)

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